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Halloween Horror Nights: Carnival of Carnage
Halloween Horror Nights: Carnival of Carnage was the 17th Halloween Horror Nights event in Orlando. Located at Universal Studios Florida, it featured the return of Jack the Clown as event icon and leader of the traveling Carnival of Carnage. His carnival had brought together a number of attractions to present for the event, including three modern horror icons from New Line Cinema. Opening Ceremony The Event The Halloween Horror Nights season began in June 2007 with a Universal press release announcing a deal with New Line Cinema to bring characters from their films to the event. Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Freddy Krueger from ''A Nightmare On Elm Street'' and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th were slated to appear for the event. With an announcement on the official website, Mary Shaw, from Universal's film Dead Silence would also appear. Late in July, Universal's creative team announced a house based on the aftermath of the movie The Thing. After the announcements, the official website was slowly updated. It initially confirmed the title of the event as Carnival of Carnage and began to confirm other houses, including one based on a rave with vampires, a sequel to PsychoScareapy set during Christmas with escaped inmates terrorizing a neighborhood, and a funhouse. During the week of August 17, 2007, a new Halloween themed shop opened up in nearby Citywalk. Plastered on the outside of this building were images of Jack the clown in full ringmaster garb. Following this, a Universal newsletter and several local news channels featured Jack in the same attire, all but confirming his presence at the event. Finally, on August 30, Universal announced in a press release the names of the houses and shows for the event, and later updated the website with the information with an additional show, and released an event map a week before the opening. The story released for the event said that Jack, after killing his old boss, Dr. Oddfellow, took over as the ringmaster of the carnival. Traveling the world, he found a number of acts to add to his new Carnival of Carnage. He appeared in his own show, Jack's Carnival of Carnage '(''Hollywood Stage) where he took "volunteers" from the audience to see if they could survive his horrors, he assembled a number of "freaks" for the '''Freak Show (Animal Actors Stage), including The Enigma and magician Brian Brushwood, he put together a revue of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Beetlejuice Stage), and created his own Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure (Fear Factor LIVE! Theater). In addition to the shows, Jack got together eight haunted attractions. The three New Line characters each had their own houses, with Freddy returning to 1428 Elm Street to haunt new victims in A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers (Soundstage 23), Jason returning to Camp Crystal Lake, newly renamed Camp Packanack, to terrorize the new counselors in Friday the 13th: Camp Blood (Jaws Queue), and Leatherface returning home to the Hewitt residence to stalk guests through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds (Earthquake Queue). In addition, two other movies were featured in their own attractions. In Dead Silence: The Curse of Mary Shaw (Soundstage 22), guests travel through the town of Raven's Fair where they are stalked by Mary Shaw and her victims through the graveyard, the morgue, and the Guignol Theatre, and in The Thing: Assimilation (Right Tent in World Expo) the creature from Outpost 31 has been moved with the carnival where it mutates and attacks the military personnel at the new base. Three other attractions not based on movies were also included. In Vampyr: Blood Bath (Nazarman's), vampires have taken over a club and have a rave where outsiders become victims, in PsychoScareapy: Home for the Holidays (Soundstage 23), the inmates from Shady Brook, after surviving a bus crash, terrorize a neighborhood during Christmas, and finally, Jack's Funhouse in Clown-O-Vision (Left Tent in World Expo) is a 3-D funhouse featuring Jack's troupe of clowns. The main scarezone, the Midway of the Bizarre encompasses most of the park, while a subsection, called Troupe Macabre (French/gothic vampire clowns), is stationed in the Central Park area. The Chainsaw Drill Team, under the direction of the mouthy Sheriff Hoyt from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, also return to roam the streets. There are also various carnival-themed scareactors in Hollywood and New York, including motorcycling clowns on bikes designed to look like runaway carousel horses and clowns in demented looking bumper cars. Starting with this event, Universal no longer uses local fraternities or sororities to help staff the event. Instead, they have a group of roughly 40 scareactors used solely to fill in spots around the park each night whenever a scheduled employee has a night off or calls in sick. This group, called the Fire Crew, is scheduled to work each night. If no positions need to be filled, they will have positions created for them in houses and scarezones. Rides